Evidence of meeting #11 for Health in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was point.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Madam Chair, the point being brought forward by Dr. Bennett is that they have requested ministers to appear with a few days' notice and that it's outrageous that three ministers of the crown didn't appear with a week's notice. Let's say it is a week; I think that's--
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
And it was passed by the committee. Isn't that outstanding?
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
The real point here, Madam Chair, is that people have schedules; they have commitments. Often ministers of the crown have their schedules built out months in advance.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Now, what is really different is that when we had called members of the opposition to other committees, giving them a week's notice, they in fact indicated they would never appear--
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Out of order, Madam Chair. That's nothing to do with what we're talking about.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
When we looked into the in-and-out at the ethics committee.... By the way, Elections Canada has since ruled the Liberals were completely unfounded on that. It was nothing but political and partisan posturing on behalf of their party. That's what they did. They brought that forward for nothing but partisan gain. We've gone to court and been completely exonerated of that. I'm looking for Carolyn's release on that where she might in fact indicate that she and her party were wrong, but I doubt that I'll actually see that.
In this case, we want--
Liberal
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Mr. Del Mastro, could you make sure that everything keeps relevant? I'm sure you will.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Of course it's relevant.
Was that a point of order, Madam Chair? I just want to understand, because I actually have the floor, since I'm debating the motion on the floor.
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
I didn't hear that either.
So here's the point. The motion is that they want to condemn ministers for not showing up with seven days' notice. What's relevant is that we have to analyze what happens at other committees. Is this motion reasonable? It is not reasonable. It's highly unreasonable, and they know that.
If the honourable member would like, Madam Chair, I'm pretty sure that with a few days' notice I could put together a list of all the Liberal ministers who took more than a week to show up at committee over their 13-year reign, or the decade of darkness, as General Hillier described it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Dr. Bennett, I'm not going to recognize you if you interrupt me. I'm going to give you your turn, if you can just calm down a little bit. I will give you all the time that you want.
Dr. Bennett.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
The point that this motion is meant to outline is that there's a difference between being indisposed because of a schedule and an outright refusal to come to committee to discuss this. The three ministers indicated to the clerk that they would not be coming. It was not “Could you move it to a week later?”, or “Could you move it to a month later?” They are saying they are not coming to testify on this issue. The majority of this committee decided they wanted another meeting to actually allow the ministers the opportunity to clear whatever allegation or whatever insinuation they were concerned about.
We are having to put a line in the sand that Parliament needs to have the power to hold government to account. If ministers refuse to come to committee, the only option we have right now.... Because of the previous collegial atmosphere of Parliament, where we didn't have the power to subpoena ministers because it was viewed to be a collegial way, we didn't compel one another as members of Parliament to have to come before a committee. That collegiality always meant that the minister came. It was at their convenience sometimes, but the minister came.
It is only with this Conservative government that we see outright refusals of the ministers of the crown to be accountable to the committees that are supposed to be offering the oversight for Canadians on the work of this government. Parliament must be able to hold government to account. That means the ministers must come.
It is imperative that we report back to the House--
